Book prize success for 'Beautyscapes: Mapping Cosmetic Surgery Tourism'

We are delighted to announce that the book, Beautyscapes: Mapping Cosmetic Surgery Tourism (2019, Manchester University Press) has been awarded the 2020 Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize. The book is co-authored by CIGS colleagues and friends, Ruth Holliday (School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds), Meredith Jones (Social Science and Communications, Brunel University) and David Bell (School of Geography, University of Leeds).

The Manchester University Press website summarises the book as follows: "Beautyscapes explores the global phenomenon of international medical travel, focusing on patient-consumers seeking cosmetic surgery outside their home country and on those who enable them to access treatment abroad, including surgeons and facilitators. It documents the journeys of those who travel for treatment abroad, as well as the nature and power relations of the IMT industry. Empirically rich and theoretically sophisticated, Beautyscapes draws on key themes of interest to students and researchers interested in globalisation and mobility to explain the nature and growing popularity of cosmetic surgery tourism. Richly illustrated with ethnographic material and with the voices of those directly involved in cosmetic surgery tourism, Beautyscapes explores cosmetic surgery journeys from Australia and China to East-Asia and from the UK to Europe and North Africa".

You can find a review of the book by Anna Dowrick in the Sociology of Health and Illness  here.

This is an important, ambitious book that is a tremendous read and that makes an important contribution to how we think about cosmetic tourism, in all its complexity. Congratulations to the authors for this tremendous achievement.